Give Your Green Light to ‘Will & Harper’

September 20, 2024

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , 2 Comments

W&H (CREDIT: Netflix)

Starring: Will Ferrell, Harper Steele

Director: Josh Greenbaum

Running Time: 114 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: September 13, 2024 (Theaters)/September 27, 2024 (Netflix)

Will & Harper is basically the perfect film for my silly little habit of asking some variation of the question, “Would I like to be a part of what this movie is all about?” Because the answer is an unequivocal “Yes!”

The titular “Will” is Will Ferrell, one of my favorite Funny People on Planet Earth, while the titular “Harper” is Harper Steele, a former Saturday Night Live writer who often teamed up with Will during their time together at Studio 8H. And Will & Harper is about the cross-country* road trip they go on together in the wake of the latter’s gender transition as a trans woman (*-that country being the United States).

It would’ve just been grand if I could’ve been there right alongside them, even if just for a minute. What if they had serendipitously dropped into a Dunkin’ Donuts in my neighborhood? It could’ve happened! Maybe it still could! But at least I was able to watch this doc and experience their adventure vicariously, which is the next best thing.

Grade: 55 Pringles out of 69 Natty Lights

The Doggies of ‘Strays’ Are on the Dirtiest and Sweetest Mission of the Year

August 17, 2023

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Here Be Strays (CREDIT: Universal Studios)

Starring: Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher, Randall Park, Will Forte

Director: Josh Greenbaum

Running Time: 93 Minutes

Rating: R for Thoroughly Scatological and Sexual Humor, and Some Canine Revenge Violence

Release Date: August 18, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Dog is famously man’s best friend. But someone forgot to explain that to Doug, the frequently masturbating, irresponsible loner played by Will Forte in Strays. He has a Border Terrier named Reggie (voiced by Will Ferrell), but that’s only to spite his most recent ex-girlfriend, who was actually the one who chose to adopt the pup in the first place. Soon enough, Doug realizes that Reggie’s cramping his style a bit too much, so he tries to get rid of him with a miles-long version of fetch. Reggie thinks it’s all a game until streetwise stray Boston Terrier Bug (Jamie Foxx) sets him straight. The two of them then team up with therapy Great Dane Hunter (Randall Park) and sniffer supreme Australian Shepherd Maggie (Isla Fisher) for the ultimate revenge mission: they’re going to take away the thing that Doug cares the most about in the world by biting off a certain part of his anatomy that dangles between his legs.

What Made an Impression?: An Explicit Dog’s Life: I didn’t make any exact calculations while watching, but I would estimate that about 75% of the jokes and gags in Strays are scatological or sexual in nature. That makes sense, as dogs sure do poop and pee and hump a lot. That’s true of a lot of mammals, after all! But dogs tend to be especially shameless about it. So director Josh Greenbaum and screenwriter Dan Perrault wisely take a matter-of-fact approach to the crudeness. Depending on your tolerance level for potty humor, you might find yourself averting or rolling your eyes at certain moments. But Strays stays true to its canine worldview through and through, and it deserves respect for that.
Guileless and Openhearted: It’s essential that Strays‘ main pooch be as fundamentally trusting as Reggie is. Even when he realizes how awful Doug has been to him, it doesn’t change his entire conception of existence. Instead, he still believes that the world is absolutely full of wonder, and if anything, his time with his new friends convinces him of that truth even more. Life off the leash could terrify a more skittish dog, but Reggie rolls along with pretty much anything. If you introduce him to the couch you’ve been humping, he’ll treat it as an honor to meet someone so important. If you tell him that he should tell the lawn gnome he’s humping that he’s its daddy, he’ll do his best to make the introduction to his long-lost son less awkward. It’s always welcome to have a fresh bundle of joy on your team.
Treat Your Pet Right: In its most ambitious moments, Strays grasps for profundity in exploring the emotional dynamics of toxic relationships. And it’s mostly successful. Despite his desire for vengeance, there’s also an undercurrent implying that Reggie can’t quite quit Doug. And his explanation for why that is sounds a lot like the sort that you might hear from people who have been abused in human-human relationships. Reggie has internalized the lesson that he deserves Doug’s neglect because he’s been a bad dog all along, and it’s heartbreaking to witness that realization. While Strays has been advertised a gross-but-sweet raucous comedy, it turns out that it’s actually most assured in its handling of canine psychology.

Strays is Recommended If You Like: Talking dog movies like Homeward Bound and A Dog’s Purpose but wish they had more poop and dick jokes

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Humps

The Writers of ‘Bridesmaids’ Ramp Up the Delightful Absurdity in ‘Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar’

February 11, 2021

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Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (CREDIT: Lionsgate/YouTube Screenshot)

Starring: Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumolo, Jamie Dornan, Damon Wayans Jr., Michael Hitchock, Reyn Doi, Kwame Patterson, Vanessa Bayer, Fortune Feimster, Rose Abdoo, Phyllis Smith, Wendi McClendon-Covey, Richard Cheese

Director: Josh Greenbaum

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Very Playful (and Kind of Explicit) Sexual Dialogue

Release Date: February 12, 2021 (On Demand)

A young boy in a canary yellow hat rides his bike down a picturesque suburban street while delivering newspapers and singing along to “Guilty,” the 1980 Barbra Streisand/Barry Gibb smooth jazz duet. Encountering a robot owl, he heads purposefully underground into a world of intrigue. A super-secret, super-important mission appears to be afoot. And that’s when we meet Barb and Star (Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, respectively), two fortysomething best friends who appear to have absolutely nothing to do with everything we’ve seen up to this point. Instead, they spend their days gabbing away about whatever absurd notions pop into their heads while sitting on one of the showroom couches at the furniture store where they work. But alas, horror of horrors: the store is closing forever, and Barb and Star have no idea what to do with all their newfound free time! They could hang out at their rigidly regimented friend group gabfest (run by a fantastically tightly wound Vanessa Bayer), but then an opportunity comes knocking in the form of a vacation to the resort town of Vista Del Mar. They’ve never been the type to venture outside their hometowns, but heckfire, what better time than now to throw caution to the wind and spread their wings!

Often when reviewing movies, I like to ask myself, “Does this film make me want to do the thing it says in its title?” So with that in mind, does Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar make me want to go to Vista Del Mar? And the answer is … heck yeah! It’s a beachside town full of bright colors, romance, magic, and Mark Jonathan Davis as his lounge act persona Richard Cheese singing naughty songs in a hotel lobby, after all. And if I could spend my stay there right alongside Barb and Star and their versatile culottes, oh wow, would I be in hog heaven. The world has made no effort to stop them from being who they really are, and their conversations reflect that, as Wiig and Mumolo bring an astounding improvisatory yes-and energy to every single one of their interactions.

There’s also so many more elements in this movie that I haven’t mentioned yet, mostly because I don’t want to mention them, as this is the most satisfyingly unpredictable comedy I have seen in quite some time. Wiig and Mumolo co-wrote the screenplay, and it feels like a passion project of two best friends daring each other to indulge in their most outré excesses. Playing straight(-ish) man to their whirligig of whimsy is Jamie Dornan, who seems to have found his perfect niche as a lovelorn hopeless romantic agent of espionage. Also of note: Wiig pulls double duty as a supervillian best left unremarked upon, Damon Wayans Jr. shows up for a running gag of very silly inadvertent secret-revealing, and Barb and Star’s conversations about a hypothetical woman named “Trish” eventually pay off handsomely. In conclusion, this is one of those funny flicks that delights me immediately and endlessly, but I’m not quite sure how to fully put into words why it makes me feel that way (the last few paragraphs notwithstanding). But I hope to continually revisit it and think about it much more in the coming years and then explain it as best I can when the proper time comes along.

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is Recommended If You Like: Zoolander, Hot Rod, AM Radio hits of the 70s

Grade: 4 out of 5 Seafood Jams